Plantagon a Swedish food science and technology company has released a office building design, called "plant building and plans in Sweden about tran province Linkoping city (Linkoping) built the first such magnificent indoor farm + type office building.Because of the farm's unique operating model, urban farmers who work here don't have to pay any rent at all because the farm generates enough heat to pay off.

Plantagon underground farms, like other indoor farms, grow plants with LED lighting in buildings.But Plantagon differs, originally due to the lighting in the room, hot gas, is usually out of room to prevent overheating, plant but Plantagon directly to heat together, in the building's thermal energy storage system, can help the people in the office building in winter to keep warm.

The method of collecting heat from the underground farm is to use the water pipes above the LED lights to keep the heat in the water and then to the heat pump system.The thermal storage system will save the building 700, 000 kilowatt-hours of energy per year, equivalent to three times the rent in the basement.In addition, the carbon dioxide produced in the office will be placed on the farm, and the fresh oxygen from the farm produce will be returned to office workers.

"Building owners agreed to let us to benefit from the rent for 3 years, so we don't need to pay any for this basement Mao Ruidian kroner," Plantagon co-founder of Hans Hassle said, "for urban farmer, if you really want to grow vegetables and fruits in the city, must find a new business model, to make the output of food less expensive."

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The heat and oxygen generated by underground farms can be used by workers in the same building (image: Plantagon)

The company plans to sell fruit and vegetables directly to office workers in the same building, as well as two of its restaurants.About a third of the output will be sold to nearby grocery stores, where the transport process is close enough to consume no oil.Another third will be sold in shops in the building.

"In Sweden, people are more interested in growing food than organic food," Hassle says. "people often want to know where food comes from."

Hassle added that if an organic lettuce from hundreds of miles, even thousands of miles away where to shop, so it's likely environmental footprint than in local indoor farm production of lettuce.

Plantagon plans to open 10 ground-floor farms in Stockholm in the next three years, starting with buildings that already have underground heat pumps.The team is also discussing with local energy companies the possibility of selling the remaining heat to other buildings in the region.

Linkoping, a city 2 hours' drive from Stockholm, is planning to expand its underground farm to a 16-story "plant skyscraper".In addition to the entire building to produce fruits and vegetables, two-thirds of the space will be rented out for office use to maintain operational stability.The plan is expected to be implemented by 2020 or 2021.

Plantagon, another similar indoor farm program, will also be implemented in Singapore.In the lack of farming land country, most of the crops are imported from neighboring countries, like Malaysia, while Malaysia irrigable land less and less, its population is more and more long, Singapore can begin to grow food within their own homeland Plantagon urban farm interest.Similarly, in some cities in China that are struggling to get enough food, they are also starting to negotiate with Plantagon.

The company is raising funds from FundedByMe, a crowdfunding platform, to build the first farm.Hassle hopes the plan will involve as many people as possible, not just because of financial factors, but because he believes that every citizen needs to actively become a shareholder in urban agriculture.

"For us, food production and other business is different, food is like water, were part of the human rights," Hassle said, "so we have greater social responsibility, and responsibility to the environment, this is also our actively inviting people to have part of the reason of equity, because everyone should make a contribution."